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7 Ways You are Losing Hours in Your Day

The biggest complaint I hear from all moms is in reference to time. Where does the time go? I don’t have enough time to take care of myself. There aren’t enough hours in the day for all the things on my to-do list. Don’t worry momma, I’ve said those very things myself. I had a newborn at home, and I was stressed. I was sitting around crying every single day, because I didn’t get any work done or I didn’t feel like I could shower. I was letting too many things go to the wayside and I was feeling the pressure. You don’t have to be me, though. You don’t have to spend hours wasting time crying over milk that didn’t necessarily have to be spilled.

Momma, we’re all gonna have bad days. We’re all gonna have days where not everything on our to-do list gets done. You don’t have to feel bad about those days, though. This gratitude practice is aimed at helping you see what a great day you actually had even if you didn’t know it. Before we get to the end of your day, though, let us spend a minute focusing on the 7 ways you’re losing hours in your day. These are 7 ways to learn to how to use your time more intentionally!

1. Checking your e-mail as they come in…

Checking your emails as they come in can be a giant time suck. One email turns into 50 or one email turns into you going down the rabbit hole trying to find an answer to a question. This same question would’ve taken you 2 minutes if you were dealing with dedicated email time. I like to check my emails in the morning, during naptime, and just before I start to wind down for the night. You could cut down to as little as once a day. I suggest setting up an auto responder if you’re running a business so that people have a general idea about when they might hear from you. I highly recommend answering everyone within 24-hours of their email coming to you.

2. Being unorganized

How many minutes do you spend looking for your keys daily? What about that missing shoe? Trust me, this time, adds up quickly. It’s super important to be organized and know where EVERYTHING is in your house so that #allthethings flow more easily.

3. Taking forever to get ready

Ladies, I know we love to have choices in our clothing, but it wastes valuable space and time for other things. I try to buy the basics and then add pops of color with shoes, scarves, and jewelry. This means that I can get in the shower, out of the shower, and dressed in less than half an hour.

4. Not having a to-do list

Ladies, we need one of these whether we realize it or not. We cannot keep ourselves organized and on task without it. Now, I’m not saying to plan out your whole day, but we do have to keep track of the things that HAVE to be done. My to-do list usually includes what the plan is for dinner, places I have to take Sweet Baby J, and other errands that need to be run. I also like to include things like read for 15 minutes. This ensures that I’ll at least be able to mark 1 thing off my to-do list daily. You’ll get more than 1 thing done on most days, though. My secret is that I do my to-do list the night before, and I sleep soo much better.

5. Procrastinating

Putting things off until tomorrow is a big waste of your time. You could clean that room in 5 minutes flat, or you could spend 20 minutes justifying why you should put it off until tomorrow. Don’t do this to yourselves!

6. Multitasking

We as women pride ourselves on being great multitaskers, but we aren’t really. Multitasking pulls your attention in 2 or 3 directions at once meaning that nothing gets done at top speed. I’ve finished this post in less than 10 minutes because I closed down anything that I didn’t need to focus on writing it. This means that I’ve got the post open and my radio on! That’s it!

7. Not planning ahead

This is different than your to-do list. This could actually involve your whole family. I use a Trello board for recipe building for instance which allows my husband to have input. We also use Slack to communicate across the house so that we have written documentation of anything that needs to be done. Our calendars are also in sync. This makes my life so much easier, but it also makes planning ahead easier. We try to get together every morning to discuss what is on the agenda for the week. This makes it significantly easier to know who is supposed to be where and who is taking care of Sweet Baby J. Now I’m not wasting time on our way out the door.

What are your time management tips? How do you organize your to-do list? Have you tried Trello or Slack? Do you want to keep the conversation going? Click below to join the #momsquad!

— Yvonne

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Yvonne Marcus

Hello! I'm Yvonne. I'm a wife and mother of one. We are currently living in Asheville and taking advantage of everything that it has to offer. (Image Credit: Continuum Photography)

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Hey, I’m Yvonne!

My life’s passion is to help moms lead their ideal life. My hope is that I’ll be able to help you live that life as well. The life you were meant to live all the time and not just in those quiet moments at home.